Levi Strauss & Co. has patent protection for an automated laser solution for finishing its jeans that shortens the process from 20 minutes to 90 seconds. Prior to automation, the manual process for distressing a pair of jeans for Levi’s modeled after a designer sample required a factory worker to apply chemicals to the jeans, use sandpaper to distress them and introduce the holes and tears indicative of designer duds.

This laborious, inexact process typically took 20 to 30 minutes per pair.With the automation technology, the factory worker is removed from the process; a Levi’s designer creates a digital image of the distressed jeans with instructions the laser technology can understand, and the lasers can then replicate every element of the design—from fades to tears—onto a basic pair of jeans. And finishing that process takes just 90 seconds.

The technology allows the company to produce unfinished jeans in Asia, then send them to nearshore countries for finishing. This means that the company can test many different styles, quickly reproduce the best sellers, and have them in stores within days.

Levi’s is presently piloting the technology, which it expects to roll out to all of its factories by 2020.